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Zheng Enchong Open Letter to the UN Human Rights Council (CECC Full Translation)

June 29, 2006

The following is a translation prepared by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China of an open letter from Zheng Enchong to the Chairman of the UN Human Rights Council, dated June 15, 2006. The Chinese text was retrieved from a June 18 Epoch Times posting.

Dear UN Human Rights Council,
Dear Mr. Chairman,
Greetings:

I am at present a 55-year-old lawyer practicing in Shanghai, in the People's Republic of China.

I passed China's second national bar examination in 1988, and received my certification as a lawyer from the Shanghai Justice Bureau in May 1990. In May 1994, I began work as a full-time lawyer.

Since 1994, I have represented disadvantaged residents in Shanghai and, unwilling to tolerate the illegal demolition of homes and requisitioning of land, initiated a lawsuit against the local government. On May 28, 2003, in the Jing'an District People's Court in Shanghai, I represented six plaintiff households in suing Shanghai tycoon Zhou Zhengyi (who, on June 1, 2004, was sentenced to three years fixed-term imprisonment by the Shanghai court). On that day, I drafted all the legal documents and assisted the plaintiffs in presenting their evidence. The same day, I drafted a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao and State Council Premier Wen Jiabao, exposing Shanghai tycoon Zhou Zhengyi and criticizing the former Mayor of Shanghai and State Council Vice-Premier Huang Ju.

On October 28, 2003, the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court sentenced me to three years fixed-term imprisonment for the crime of supplying state secrets to the U.S.-based "Human Rights in China" on May 28, 2003.

My criminal defender, lawyer Zhang Sizhi, was approved in 1980 by Mr. Deng Xiaoping to serve as the leader of Jiang Qing and Lin Biao's defense team. He is the founder of China's legal profession and an outstanding Chinese lawyer nearly 80 years old.

The other defender was lawyer Guo Guoting, Director of the Shanghai Tianyi Law Firm, who was forced into exile in Canada.

These two lawyers both pled not guilty on my behalf.

On June 5 of this year, after my release, the Shanghai municipal government dispatched 6 police cars, over 20 policemen, and over 30 plainclothes personnel (there were over 100 on the day that I left prison) to place me under house arrest at my home and forbid me from visiting my 94-year-old mother Yang Jin, a devout Christian. They also forbade me from going to the Shanghai Christian Jiao Mu'en Church to participate in religious activities.

Since 1997, as disclosed by Chinese media, more than 700 Chinese lawyers have at some point been imprisoned for practicing their profession in accordance with law. Each year, there are over 120 journalists who suffer injury, become disabled, or are beaten to death while engaging in their profession.

I make the following appeals to the first Human Rights Council of the United Nations:

1. Please have the Chinese government publish, as soon as possible, Chinese versions of the UN Charter, all human rights conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the UN Anti-Corruption Convention;

2. Please have the Chinese government make public, through domestic media, all of the words, deeds, documents, and commitments of Chinese government representatives to the Human Rights Council;

3. The UN Human Rights Council must do its best to financially support Chinese citizens and the various research institutes that engage in research of human rights issues;

4. The UN Human Rights Coucil should pay attention to the various incidents that take place within Chinese prisons, in violation of human rights;

5. Please urge China's National People's Congress to, as soon as possible, ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;

6. I respectfully ask that you pay attention to one Chinese citizen's, one Shanghai lawyer's, unjust case and state of existence;

7. Please urge the Chinese government to, by a set date, make good on its promise to abolish the hukou system and allow 1.3 billion people to have the freedom of unrestrained movement;